


in which peace is not so neatly found

by illumimorow



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Nonverbal Link (Legend of Zelda), Post-Canon, Violence, and i will not be held responsible for the machinations of my subconscious, arguably..., i do bad and feral things to mipha in this fic but in my defence i dreamt half of this, implied sidlink - Freeform, though you could read it as platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:41:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24210781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illumimorow/pseuds/illumimorow
Summary: They are walking, step by evenly paced step, towards a grave.A look at things left behind.
Relationships: Link/Prince Sidon, Mipha & Prince Sidon
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	in which peace is not so neatly found

They are walking, step by evenly paced step, towards a grave.

Few unmarked graves are so grand in design, and while intricate symbols wrap around thick limbs of lumbering metal they do not spell out the name of the warrior who breathed her last encased in its shell. In younger days, Sidon might have tried to convince himself that it was more than the empty husk he saw behind his eyelids, but Link has walked inside it, as though mortals could walk through graves untouched, and doesn’t need to speak the truth aloud. 

Graves are not meant to move, though, and yet Vah Ruta has left its home upon the top of the Highlands to wander further from the Domain, to the wetlands that had once made their home to camps of angry scaled monsters but now lies quiet, empty, only the coating of water and short grass swaying gently in the breeze to stifle the light’s reflection.

The moon rises, no longer calling forth puppets to throw their bones like weapons, and there is little to fear from a beast with no master. Perhaps it is simply lost, and seeks a new pilot. Or perhaps it seeks an end that it might follow her.

There is nothing to fear, despite the weapons on their backs that might betray some hint of apprehension.

Regardless, they move closer, and Link gives him a look Sidon knows well by now means _wait here,_ a look they both know will only be listened to for a few moments, but they keep up the pretence.

Link walks away, and Sidon waits. There is an uncomfortable familiarity to it.

He waits. His eyes scan their surroundings, surroundings that reveal nothing that can answer for the unease that does not quite settle in him. There’s a kind of static in the air, and though his fingers twitch with anticipation he does not yet touch the spear on his back.

He waits. Another moment, maybe two, but patience has never really been his forte and he steps-

Stops.

There’s a light. Faint, a shimmer in the air easily overlooked as a trick of the light, but the shimmer seems to pulse, seems to grow, fireflies conducting an intricate dance and yet… it’s nothing so solid. Greenish-blue swirls, coalesces into a form he knows and does not know, and he can’t. Move. Familiar features take shape, and she- she smiles, with such love and adoration he forgets he ever knew how to speak.

_Mipha_.

There is no vibrancy to her. The blue spirit flames that dance around her cast a hue greyer even than the one she is cursed with in his mind. Her scales do not shimmer in the moonlight, and the water beneath her does not reflect her.

None of it matters.

Mipha is there, here, in front of him, and there are so many things he wants to say. So many apologies, not least for the words he’s dreamed of and yet somehow does not have now, words to convey how much he loves her, and misses her, and is so proud of her, and _needs_ her.

She drifts over, like she’s nothing more than dust in sunbeams, and reaches up. The blue and purple swirls that form her hand cups his cheek, and he feels nothing. There is nothing of substance to touch him, and yet he leans in anyway, brings his hand up to try to hold that nothingness to him.

Her name rests on his lips, and she smiles. Wider than he remembers.

Too wide.

There is no time for panic to set in. There is only her face, familiar-unfamiliar, and too-sharp teeth, and purple, swirling, growing beneath between inside her fingertips, and oh, _now_ he feels it.

It is white-hot. The way flames could never be. She is a storm, and he has called it down upon himself in all his vain grief.

There’s nothing else.

There’s nothing else. He’s nothing else. He’s ever horror story he was ever told, he’s every distant echoed thunder. Eternity is trapped in a single second, and it’s enough to burn out his own name.   
  


There is no sound. It’s as if the air around them dampens it, traps it - but Link knows. He knows, he _feels_ it, and he runs, hasty feet scattering the water beneath him as Sidon is thrown back, and Mipha-

_Mipha-_

But it’s wrong. She’s all… _wrong_. Too tall, too thin, too faded, too hollow. Purple slick and dripping from a barely-there body warped by time and loss. Drowned in malice.

Her dull eyes meet his wide ones, and she floats towards him, single minded in her purpose like the sea she should be buried in, and abandons her previous prey, as though Sidon isn’t even worth her time.

It burns.

Link’s hand is gripping his sword. He does not remember unsheathing it, but it is there, its worn hilt in his calloused hand, and he will not use it. He can’t, he wouldn’t, _you wouldn’t, would you?_

Her lips move, but her words don’t come from there. The words are everywhere. They reverberate, the water thrums and ripples with the force of it.

_My love,_ she calls him, as though this thing could feel love, this thing that steals her face and makes a mockery of her voice, this thing, this lie, it’s a lie, it’s just a lie.

He feels - hopes, promises, futures. He dreams, but it’s not his dream, not one he ever shared, and he’s sorry, he’s so sorry, _I’m so sorry it wasn’t mine,_ and there is laughter, quiet and sad and bitter and deafening.

_Look what you made_ , she says, and he can see nothing else. It’s his hands on strong silver, his bare feet on cold metal, his aim missing once again, and he doesn’t want to relive this, he can’t - and yet, the movement he feels holds such grace, the water laps at his skin like a greeting, and when his delicate fingers press against his wounds they find not skin but scales.

He feels, as if it were his to feel - his determination, his focus, his knowledge. His fear, his desperation, his vision blurring, his energy leaving him, his chest - silver point piercing, purple pulsing, heart pumping, slow, slower, blood and malice dripping from him,

and he is on his weak knees, sword in his useless hand,

and she looks at him, his friend, his failure.

_You wouldn’t,_ she says, voice empty, somehow angry, somehow mocking. _Not again._

The sword drops from his fingertips, a sword he doesn’t belong to, and maybe she drifts closer, and maybe he can’t tell, and it doesn’t matter because she’s right. She’s always right. He can’t. He won’t he wouldn’t not _again, I won’t, I wouldn’t-_

_I would._

A thought, words, not his own and yet belonging to him,

familiar, without hollow echo

Link feels nothing but the water soaking his clothes and the malice that longs to claim him and yet he feels _something_ , something, like a hand around his own, like a promise.

_I would_.

Link opens his eyes and she is pierced - no purple coated point but pure, clear, silver adorned with blue, and its so bright to his fading vision he almost believes it glows.

There’s a shriek, visceral fury and pain and she seems to come apart, a heavy stone dropped at her centre and she ripples, outwards, scatters, droplets, and they collect like rain on dirty windows, forming something that wasn’t quite what it was, holding a shape they don’t remember.

He is left, lost, she leaves, she moves like rain and he cannot catch her, cannot stop her.  
  


_You_ , she says, and her voice twists it into _nothing_ , and her hands that slip and fall and forget hold Sidon’s face, and her own face is as lifeless as the stone he begs forgiveness from, but that is solid, and eternal, and her half face is betrayal, and grief, and guilt, and so much rage.

_You aren’t my sister,_ he says, and she laughs. As if old memory is any more solid than water. As if an echo of love and comfort is more real than the fate she abandoned him for.

_I am more,_ she says, and there is nothing but her voice, and didn’t it always sound like this, so angry and false and fragile, hasn’t he always remembered her wrong?

_I am more than you could ever try to be,_ and was there ever anything of her in him? Was there ever kindness, or courage, or worth? Hasn’t he always been what he sees in her now, twisted and forgotten and unable to hold shape, malice and water, her face reflecting himself, her words, so many words, _worthless_ and _nothing_ and _liar_ and doesn’t he already know them, hasn’t he always heard them, in the tones of a voice that isn’t his, that he’ll never know as hers

_What are you?_ she says, and she is weakness and desperation scrambling to hold herself together, forming and reforming, green-blue and purple waves crashing against each other, and still she looks down on him, so small and full of longing beneath her, always looking up, up at her, up at this swirling mess of grief and rage that calls itself power, that grits its teeth and smiles too wide and has never been real, not for a second

_brother,_ and there is something familiar, _heir,_ and there is light, _in my place_ and its pure, clear, silver adorned with blue, _how long will you pretend you deserve to stand in my shadow,_ but what shadow, with so much brightness, _i n m y p l a c e_ and wasn't she the one who left _i n m y t i m e_ and didn't she give this time to him _mine_ and wasn't this her choice? wasn't this her gift to him, her time, her place, her shadow, _mine,_ and doesn't she see it, such light, can't she feel such love and grace

_what are you,_ and she has no mouth to form words, but they are still here, around him, and her own answer pulses, _nothing, nothing, nothing,_ but she is wrong, wrong,  
  


_I am what you left behind._

And she is pierced, and light is spilling out of her, brighter than the sun and yet he doesn't close his eyes because if he closes them it might stop, this love, and grace, and the strangest feeling of someone holding his empty hand

and she is scattered, droplets spreading out, turning to smoke, pinkish purple flickering in his vision before it fades, becomes nothing, and there- 

There is Link. 

Weary and battered and _here_

and there is nothing, just water, and no voice, nothing thrumming in their ears but their own pounding hearts and it is empty, and hollow, and this is nothing like victory

But there is Link.

There is his hand, still gripped around his sword, its light faded, its metal brittle and broken and- he leans against it, and it seems to shatter, and his knees tremble and his hand is empty, empty- 

So Sidon takes it, and holds it, Link's tiny hand pressed into his palm and Link's tiny fingers grasping his own, and there's no voice, there's no movement, there's hardly a breath. But there is their hands, holding each other's.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Zelda fanfic, and my first fic I've ever posted on ao3! Big thanks to arodrwho for being such a wonderful writer and amazing friend, and to my partner pikapi-chu, without whom I would never have fallen in love with these dorks in the first place. Comments are super appreciated!


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